I remember Ferman Henry from the time when I first began to go to school. He was fat and “clever,” and always ready to talk with any of the boys; and he would tell us to come into the yard and take the dipper and prime the pump, whenever we stopped to get a drink. He generally sat outside, under the big oak-tree, on the bench that stood by the fence, where he could see all who passed his door. Mrs. Henry was almost as large and fat as he, and she too was “clever” to the boys. She wore a gray dress that was alike from head to foot, and she never seemed to change it or get anything new. They had a number of children, though I cannot tell now how many. The boys were always falling out of the big oak-tree and breaking their arms and carrying them in a sling. Two or three of those I knew went to school, and I believe that some were large enough to work out. The children who went to school never seemed to learn anything from their books, but they were pleasant and “clever” with their dinners or their marbles, or anything they had. We boys managed to have more or less sport at their expense. The fact that they were “clever” and cheerful never seemed to make the least difference to us, unless to give the chance to make more fun of them on that account. They never seemed to bring much dinner to school, excepting bread-and-butter, and the bread was cut in great thick slices, and the butter never seemed very nice. I know it was none of Aunt Mary’s. We boys could tell whether folks were rich or poor by the dinners the children brought to school. If they had pie and cheese and cake and frosted cookies, with now and then a nice ripe apple, we knew that they were rich. We thought bread-and-butter the poorest kind of a lunch; and sometimes we would stop on the way and open our dinner-pails and throw it out. We always knew the Henrys were poor. They had no farm, only a bit of land along the road that ran a little way up the hill. They kept one cow, and sometimes a horse, and two or three long-eared hounds that used to hunt at night, their deep howls filling the valley with doleful sounds. Everyone said that Ferman Henry would work only when his money was all gone, and that when he had enough ahead for a few weeks he would give up his job. Sometimes he would work at the saw-mill and get a few more boards for his house, or at the country store and get nails or glass. After he came back from his three-months’ service he was given a small pension, and for a few days after every quarterly payment the family lived as well as the best, and sometimes even bought a little more material for the house. Year after year, as the family grew, he added to the building, sometimes plastering a room, sometimes putting in a window or a door; and he always said it would be finished soon.